


Champions

by dilemmaed



Category: All For The Game - Nora Sakavic
Genre: Andreil, Andrew Minyard Loves Neil Josten, Exy (All For The Game), Fluff, M/M, Neil Josten Is an Idiot, POV Neil Josten, Post-The King's Men, Professional Exy (All For The Game), Professional Exy Player Andrew Minyard, Professional Exy Player Neil Josten, Soft Neil Josten, Sports, US Court, attempt at fluff
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-11
Updated: 2020-04-11
Packaged: 2021-03-02 05:08:07
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,515
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23599606
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dilemmaed/pseuds/dilemmaed
Summary: This was all he ever wanted. To be standing here, to be playing Exy, to have Andrew at his back, Kevin at his side. It had almost killed him to be here, to have accomplished this much, but Neil wanted more.He wanted to win tonight, wanted it so badly he could taste it.No matter how they did tonight, Neil would end up on a podium and would feel the weight of a medal around his neck, silver or gold. But now that he was here, now that the seconds were counting down, now that Kevin had tied a game they’d been trailing for most of the second half, Neil craved for gold. He needed it like he needed air, like he needed Exy.
Relationships: Neil Josten/Andrew Minyard
Comments: 12
Kudos: 209





	Champions

**Author's Note:**

> Hey! Hope everyone is staying well!
> 
> Did I actually post when I said I would? It must be a miracle wow.
> 
> This is probably the least angsty thing I've ever written, but here it is! One of my best friends, Hailee, actually put this idea into my head last week and I couldn't stop thinking about it so here it is!
> 
> This is my first time writing any sort of sports scene so please be kind LOL. 
> 
> Some context for the story: Neil, Andrew, and Kevin in the final minute of the Olympic finals against Japan.
> 
> This is unbetaed so all mistakes are mine :)
> 
> I hope you enjoy the story!

There was only a minute left on the clock.

Neil could swear that his heart had never been so loud in his ears, that he had never been so aware of the thrum of it in his veins, save in a few more intimate moments with Andrew. He could feel the rumble of the crowd around him, the floor vibrating from the cries of eighty thousand fans, the rafters threatening to come down at the weight of it all.

He knew his Foxes were up there somewhere, cheering him on, holding him up, even now, even when he couldn’t see them, hear their voices. He wished he could look up and try to find them, to search for advice–for aggressive faith from Wymack, for encouragement in Dan’s eyes, a slap on the back from Matt, a backhanded compliment from Allison, an impassive glance from Aaron, a wicked smile from Nicky so at odds with Renee’s kind one but he didn’t have time, couldn’t see them through the haze of stadium lights. 

Instead, he threw his gaze backwards to the pint-sized man who stood guarding their goal. From this distance, Neil could barely see Andrew’s hazel eyes through his helmet, but Neil could feel the man’s steadying calm, knew exactly what sort of expression Andrew was wearing and could read the meaning behind it. Neil had become attuned to Andrew’s presence, could feel his eyes, his attention on him and tightened his grip on his racquet. He felt as if he could breathe a bit easier, just knowing that Andrew was there, that he could lean himself against the strength of the smaller man’s body, if need be.

It was Japan's serve from the half court line, since Kevin had just managed to even out the score to 12-12 with an impossible goal. There was only a minute left in regulation playing time and Neil had never felt so alive, save in the finals of his first year with the Foxes. Neil could scarcely believe that he made it here–to Court, to the Olympic finals when, for most of his life, he had never expected to set foot on a court, to hold a racquet ever again. He wondered, absently, what his mother would think of him being here. She’d probably be disgusted. Some part deep inside of Neil recoiled at that, but it was barely a ripple against the feeling of this moment, against Andrew’s unwavering stare.

This was all he ever wanted. To be standing here, to be playing Exy, to have Andrew at his back, Kevin at his side. It had almost killed him to be here, to have accomplished this much, but Neil wanted more. He wanted to win tonight, wanted it so badly he could taste it. No matter how they did tonight, Neil would end up on a podium and would feel the weight of a medal around his neck, silver or gold. But now that he was here, now that the seconds were counting down, now that Kevin had tied a game they’d been trailing for most of the second half, Neil craved for gold. He  _ needed _ it like he needed air, like he needed Exy. It only took one look at Kevin before they had set up play to know that he was feeling the same.

Neil didn’t care that somewhere up in the stands, in a box seat, Ichirou was watching, waiting to reap whatever profits he’d make off of Neil and Kevin’s potential win tonight. Neil didn’t think of what he might do if they lost. He only had eyes for the court–for Andrew, his teammates, and the game at hand. 

Nodding at Andrew, Neil dragged his eyes away from the man, to where the Japan’s dealer was setting up to serve. 

“ _ Pay attention _ ,” Kevin grumbled to his right. Neil rolled his eyes and made a dismissive gesture to him. Readjusting his grip on his racquet, Neil barely had time to breathe before the dealer launched the ball backwards toward her goalie. 

Neil was ready when the goalie snapped the ball down-court, to where Japan’s strikers were positioned. The US's backliners were doing their best to hold back their marks, but the ball managed to brush one of the backliner’s neck guards and ricocheted into the Japanese player’s racquet. At Kevin’s behest, Neil trotted his way up-court, while the man himself remained at the half court line.

The US didn’t let that stand for long. Recovering quickly, the backliner shoved his racquet backward, colliding it with the striker’s. The striker mark tried to move, looked wildly to set up for a pass, but the other striker couldn’t seem to shake his backliner. The man’s own backliner checked at the racquet again, the larger man trying as he could to pop the ball free. 

Before he could, however, the striker’s eyes locked on something and he extended his racquet over his head–over the backliner’s head and took a hard shot at USA’s goal. Neil’s hand tightened on his racquet, tight enough that he knew his scarred knuckles were white beneath his gloves.

Luckily, Andrew was ready for the shot. He slammed his racquet down with a ferocity so rarely seen from Andrew, who was only slightly less apathetic towards the game than he used to be. The crowd screamed, in outrage and triumph, as Andrew scooped up the ball without hesitation, whipping it up-court to Kevin, who side-stepped his backliner mark with a twirl. 

He caught the ball, but had it smacked out of his racquet almost as soon as it went in by the backliner he had ducked around only seconds before. Both Kevin and his backliner ran for it, but tripped over one another when the Japanese player threw a blatantly illegal–but uncalled–shove. The ball rolled across the court, Japan’s dealer running towards it, but Neil was already halfway there, leaving his backliner mark behind before he even knew Neil had gone. Neil was the fastest player in the game and with less than 30 seconds left, they needed all the speed they could get.

He needed to end this now.

The dealer got there first, scooped the ball into her racquet and began to run back toward USA’s goal. She didn’t get far before Neil caught up with her. He signalled to one of his backliners and the two of them cornered the dealer, managing to smack the ball away. The backliner had the ball now, faking a pass to Neil as the striker backpedaled to get into position, before heaving it against the court wall up-court to Kevin. 

Kevin caught the ball and made towards the goal just as Neil’s backliner mark finally caught up to him near the court wall. The man was so much bigger than Neil that he ducked under the reach of his arm, making an impossible escape.

The clock was counting down, growing closer and closer to the end with each second that passed. 

Kevin took a shot on goal, and Neil stopped breathing. Kevin cursed loud enough in French that Neil heard him across court as the ball missed by a bare inch. The clang the ball made against the wall was deafening, even against the cacophony of the stadium. It sounded like a gunshot. Neil blinked hard, sucking in a breath as he ran. He kept one eye on the wall, one eye on Kevin. His backliner mark was on his heels again, but he charged on. 

Kevin caught the ball once more as it rebounded back to where he stood.

_ Twelve seconds. _

Kevin didn’t shoot again–no. His own backliner was closing in on him. He had nowhere to move, no opening to the goal. Kevin whipped the ball across the court to Neil, who ran to meet it, jumping, barely able to hold onto his racquet as the force of the ball collided with the netting. Kevin’s backliner didn’t have time to stop before crashing into the man, crushing Kevin into the court wall with a crunch.

_ Ten seconds. _

Neil turned away from the backliner at his back, noting that the US dealer was behind him now, covering Kevin’s position as the man himself tried to recover from his backliner’s misplaced hit. 

_ Seven seconds.  _

Neil dodged a Japanese striker to his left, curling his way back around the dealer. He could see the goal, could see the man bouncing slightly on the balls of his feet. 

_ Four seconds. _

Neil reached his arm back to take a shot, but before he could, Kevin’s backliner mark came from his side, trying to smack his racquet out of Neil’s hand.

_ Three seconds. _

Neil smacked his stick against the backliner’s with a hard crack, fighting to keep the ball inside of his racquet. The backliner shouted something derogatory, but Neil gritted his teeth, for once ignoring it.

_ Two seconds. _

Neil couldn’t feel his legs as he moved, as he forced himself to keep going. He wound up again, spinning around the large man before him, finally getting a good enough view of the goal to shoot the ball. He put all he had left into the shot, would risk blowing out his arm if it meant a gold medal came out of it. He knew Kevin would gripe about it later, but now, all Neil cared about was the goal in front of him, the pounding in his ears, and a win so nearly in his grasp. 

Neil released the ball, not even a second later the backliner’s stick collided with his hard enough that Neil felt the bones in his wrists rattling. He let go, knowing that if he held on, his hand would break from the pressure. His feet tangled together in the aftermath and he tumbled to the ground, knocking all of the air from his lungs.

The goal lit up red.

The buzzer sounded.

It was over.

They had  _ won _ . 

Before Neil had even managed to stand up or catch his breath, Kevin had made his way across the court to him, his helmet discarded somewhere in the chaos that erupted around them. He was yelling; everyone was yelling and Neil couldn’t hear a thing as Kevin tackled him in a rare show of affection.

“It was  _ brilliant!  _ It was amazing, you reckless son of a bitch!”

Neil’s smile was so wide it was as if someone had placed a hanger in his mouth. It wasn’t his father’s smile; it wasn't the cruel sneer that had looked upon him as an iron was pressed to his chest, as his father told him he was going to cut the tendons in his legs, skin him alive. This smile was different; it was an unfamiliar feeling, but he welcomed it all the same. He couldn’t stop, didn’t want to stop, and he gave Kevin a tight squeeze. For once, Kevin had no complaints, no criticisms, not for the moment, only a bright smile as he embraced Neil as tight as he could with their bulky gear. 

‘ _ We did it, _ ’ Neil thought, ‘ _ We did it. _ ’

Neil shouted it, but he couldn’t hear himself, couldn’t hear anything over the roaring sound of the crowd. But that didn’t matter. Kevin pried himself off Neil, pulling him up with a gloved hand, but from the moment Neil stood up, he had eyes only for Andrew.

Kevin took notice immediately, stepping aside to let Neil pass before the rest of their team came to tackle him back to the ground in triumph. They were storming towards where he and Kevin stood, but Neil pulled his helmet off, tossing it onto the floor as he broke out into a jog down-court. He needed to get to Andrew.

Andrew still stood at the other end of the court and was wrestling with his helmet by the time Neil approached. His hair was darkened with sweat, his usual golden blond resembling brown. Neil wanted to run his fingers through it. His cheeks were pinked too, but those were the only physical signs of exertion that Andrew displayed. He wasn’t smiling, but Neil wasn’t expecting him to be; Andrew rarely smiled and he wouldn’t deign himself to waste one on something as _trivial_ as Exy.   
Neil was still smiling as he slowed his jog to stand in front of Andrew. The man looked bored as his eyes danced about Neil’s frame, from his gloved hands, to his legs, to his face, where only a smile and icy blue eyes stared back at him.

“We won,” he said, unable to peel the smile off of his face, though he found that he didn’t want to. He had  _ earned _ this.  _ They _ had earned this.

“We did,” Andrew said, dipping his head in a nod, his expression bored, nothing to denote that Andrew understood the gravity of what this meant, that they were standing in a stadium filled to the brim with eighty thousand fans, all screaming in tandem. Neil knew though, that Andrew did know, that he knew exactly what was going on and didn’t care–didn’t care about anything but the man standing in front of him, didn’t care about anything but Neil.

Neil only smiled harder at that, hard enough that he could feel the scars on his cheeks pulling with phantom pain. Neil took a step towards Andrew, close enough that he could forget everything around them and focus solely on the man standing before him. He was close enough to see the sweat on Andrew’s brow, not yet wiped away, close enough to see the flecks of green amidst his hazel irises. 

“Junkie,” Andrew said impassively, looking down to pull off his glove, ignoring the fact that Neil had moved closer, that he was staring at him. He tossed it to the ground to where both his stick and helmet lay discarded.

“You like it,” Neil said, pulling off his gloves too as he took another step forward, tossing them onto the court floor beside Andrew’s. “I like that you like it,” he breathed, reaching out to take a fistful of Andrew’s jersey in his hand, and pulled him into a rough kiss.

His mouth was fire against Andrew’s, burning hotter than he ever thought he could endure, but he only wanted to lean further into it. Andrew opened his mouth to Neil entirely, sliding his tongue against that of that taller man with a fury that threatened to knock Neil clean off his already-shaking legs. Somewhere in the distance, he could feel the crowd,  _ feel _ them screaming more than hear them, like a constant vibration against Neil’s buzzing skin. He moved his lips against Andrew’s with practiced ease, teeth and tongue colliding in a dance too-familiar, in a way that made Neil ache for more.

Andrew’s kiss felt like winning, felt like the rush of an impossible goal, the weight of a medal being placed around his neck, a trophy in his hand. He crushed his lips against Andrew’s hard enough to split his lip, his fingers sliding into the blond’s damp hair, tangling in the strands. Andrew’s right hand followed suit, working his fingers into auburn hair, pulling hard, fingernails scraping against Neil’s scalp. 

Andrew knew all the ways Neil liked to be touched, had memorized each one carefully, in the same way that one might study a map. His other hand found its way to Neil’s cheek, to the ruined skin of his burn scar, where an inked number ‘4’ had once been. Andrew’s touch was an affirmation–a confirmation of what they had accomplished, of what it meant to Neil. He had survived Riko; he had survived his father’s wrath, Lola’s torture. He managed to  _ live _ rather than survive. He had managed to stop running. He had allowed himself to build a life–a real one. He had managed to convince Ichirou of his use, had managed to graduate–to make  _ Court _ , to fulfill the promise Kevin had made him since they had first gone on Kathy’s show. And now he has  _ won _ .

_ ‘Champions _ ,’ Neil dared to think, his heart leaping at the word.

With a last kiss pressed to Neil’s mouth, Andrew pulled off of him, letting the hand on Neil’s face drop to his side. Neil didn’t let him go very far, pulling him back in with a fierce tug on his jersey, wrapping his arms around Andrew in an embrace. He gripped Andrew tight, the only thing–the only person in the world who could keep him grounded. 

They weren’t ones for this sort of contact, but Andrew tightened the hand he had on the back of Neil's neck. They stood, Neil’s scarred cheek pressed against Andrew’s unblemished one, Neil practically vibrating with elation. He knew he was smiling still, could feel it widening as he felt Andrew’s warm breath against his neck.

Leaning into Andrew’s ear, tightening his arms around him marginally, Neil whispered, “We did it,” he said, “we won.”

Andrew said nothing, but pulled off Neil completely. His eyes watched Neil languidly, lingering on his smile. He lifted his eyebrow in a half-interested manner and snorted. 

“You’re a fucking idiot, Josten,” Andrew said.

Neil only shrugged, but Andrew jutted his chin out, so as to gesture to the stadium around them. Neil finally turned around, raking a hand through his sweaty hair as he did.

Both teams had stopped in their tracks, USA in their victory huddle, Japan from where they stood by the court wall. Every person seated in the stadium was screaming at a volume that could only be categorized as inhuman. And they were all staring down-court to where Neil and Andrew stood beside USA’s goal.

The US team all knew what was between Neil and Andrew. You couldn’t be around the two of them for more than an hour without knowing that something was there, but no one had actually  _ seen _ it–seen them show affection towards each other–save Kevin, who was accustomed to it after all this time, after having shared a room with the two of them for two years. Neil’s eyes went to him now, where he stood unfazed by the event.

The press and their fans, however, didn’t know. Well at least, they hadn’t–until now. There had been speculations of course, since the two were practically attached at the hip, but he and Andrew weren’t particularly public with their relationship. They weren’t trying to hide it per say, but they had never cared enough to make an announcement, or address the rumors. He knew they would have a field day with this, replaying the no-doubt televised clip of Neil kissing Andrew until their eyes bled. 

The crowd was louder now than it had been when Neil had scored, than it had been when the buzzer went off. He couldn’t tell if the sounds were positive, if they were cheering or booing, but he managed to catch the echo of a wolf whistle from their own team’s dealer. Neil couldn’t bring himself to care, couldn’t bring himself to muster up a reaction, save a laugh that bubbled up on his lips.

“Now look what you’ve done,” Andrew said, not sounding particularly concerned. “Neil Josten, you are a disaster.” 

Neil turned back around to face him, “Not boring though,” Neil prompted, not a question.

“Vaguely interesting,” Andrew confirmed, gesturing with his hand to Neil’s general person. “You’ll outlive your usefulness one day.”

“Not today,” Neil said, smiling, and leaned in to kiss Andrew again.

The lightness in his head, in his heart felt disconcerting, almost as dizzying as Andrew’s kiss. He leaned into the other man, a hand squeezing his shoulder pad furiously, unable to get a grip on Andrew himself. 

_ This _ , he thought, was what it felt like to be a champion, to finally make it.  _ This _ was what it was like to mean something. His heart seized at the sounds of the crowd, at the thought of the win they had just secured, the goal he had just scored. He tried to imagine his Foxes’ faces when he finally was able to see them–his family even now. Everything he had endured had been worth it, if only so it could get him here–an Exy racquet in his hand, Andrew at his back and the Foxes to either side of him. 

His medal was as much  _ theirs _ as it was  _ his _ . Neil never would have gotten this far–lived this long, if not for his Foxes. They’d given Neil hope, given him a family in a life where such concepts had been elusive to him–as much of a pipe dream as Andrew had once thought Neil to be. They’d given him the strength to endure it all. 

So, Neil leaned the last of that fading strength against the man who’d given him a home–who’d placed a key into his palm and told him to stay, who would keep a promise even if it meant his own destruction, who had long since stopped denying that this thing between them might actually mean something–and smiled.

**Author's Note:**

> I have another one shot planned out and have started it that I'm really excited about! It's a lot angstier than this one, but I think it's going to be a fun one to write! 
> 
> But in the meantime I hope everyone is staying safe during this time!
> 
> I hope you enjoyed the story and please, please don't hesitate to leave comments or Kudos; I love hearing feedback from my reader; it really inspires me to keep writing more!
> 
> Feel free to follow me on tumblr for writing updates, etc at dilemma-ed and check out my other works For Everything, Falling, and Coming Home (Andreil) and To The Fallen (a Dramione war fic). I'm going to be creating a collection to put all of my Andreil one shots in so that they're easier to find!
> 
> I'm still new to writing aftg, so please let me know in the comments what you'd like to see me write prompt wise, etc !
> 
> Until next time,  
> Em :)


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